The Decisions in the Arena
by TestCardGirl
Summary: Thirteen-year-old Elena Whitecott has, through her per usual lack of luck, been chosen to compete in the fourty-ninth Hunger Games. Decisions must be made. Decisions deciding wether she lives or dies...


Sunlight. Everywhere, sunlight, blazing down, spreading light on the ring of twenty-three tributes surrounding me. I squint in the glare of the sun, feeling my legs shaking, feeling my heart thumping furiously, adrenaline shooting through me. Fight or flight. Fight or flight. Simple decisions, difficult consequences. Run in there and surely die. Run out there and surely die. I locate Ostrin, my District Eight partner, to my far right, the sun making his soft, shaggy hair glow. I imagine that beautiful hair drenched with warm blood and avert my attention to the shining cornucopia.

It's centered in the middle of a dead wasteland. Dead, gnarled trees surround us. I see no visible water source. Panicking now, I check the clock. Thirty seconds, steadily going down. Swallow a mouthful of saliva, I ready myself. I will die if I run away, for sure. If I just go for it, I might have a chance. Just a pack. Maybe even a weapon, although I'm not going to aim for one of the silver blades resting against a row of crates in the mouth of the corn. A pack is all I need to begin with. Ostrin catches my eye. He looks like he's unable to make any movement. Instead, he nods his head and turns his own attention to the cornucopia.

Most of the other tributes are looking at the supplies nestled around the horn, too, eagerly and cautiously, making the same flight or fight decisions as we all are. The Career tributes, of course, are aiming for the swords and bows and machetes inside the cornucopia. Nobody but Careers ever aim there. Six and down, we all aim for a pack or we just aim for shelter elsewhere. Getting a wasteland is unlucky. A wide field of lush trees with plant patches and waterfalls would be ideal, but I have to be thankful it isn't a desert or a snow biome. I turn my head back over my shoulder, placing one fut in front of the oter, careful not to step off onto the land-mines.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

_One_.

The echoing ring of the gong stuns me for a moment as I stumble forwards, nearly falling onto my knees. Those ahead of me are already breaking into the bounty. Feeling a loss of hope wash away, I get onto my feet and sprint, sprint harder than I ever have before, determined not to leave without anything. Meters away from the cornucopia now, I scoop up a pack and swing it over one shoulder. I should run. I should. But I keep on going. The knives are so close, so tempting. Knives are winning and losing. I run for one, my pack banging against my spine.

Suddenly, the world erupts into an explosion of red and white and black as I fall heavily onto my side, the compression straps digging into my ribcage. Instinctively, I shield my face, and am surprised to see it's a District Twelve girl towering over me, spear raised to strike, to strike me in the heart. And all of a sudden, I see myself flashed in the sky of the arena, a ghostly mugshot of my hollow, pale face, with ELENA WHITECOTT, DISTRICT EIGHT printed underneath it, fading after five seconds. My brilliant green eyes with the gold flecks I am so happy to have from my late mother, gone.

I lose my dignity there and then.

"Please!" I cry out, my voice strangled, cowering under my arms. "Spare me!"

She does not lower the spear.

However, she does not launch the spear.

"Please," I say again, almost to myself, my tears clogging up my vision. How pathetic I must seem to the crooning audience. "Please, I mean no harm."

"You _do_ know what the rules of this game are, don't you?" she teases me, her face softening, just slightly, as she sees tears running down my face. Yells and screams fill the air behind us, but we're zoned in, us two. Only, the spear is a third person, the choice, the decision. "Kill or be killed?" She looks at me with amusement as she says, '_be killed_'.

"Yes," I say and then return to my plead. "Please spare me."

Narrowing her eyes, a cruel grin spreads upon her face. "Your training score was a four, wasn't it?"

I don't answer her.

"Willo!" she suddenly screeches. In return, a gruff male voice replies, "What? I'm after this Career."

"Get here!"

With a sigh, the boy named Willo stomps over to us, three packs squeezed onto his shoulders, sword dragged along the ground. The sword trails blood. I feel immediate threat as he too towers over me, sneering, making me feel impeccably small. My hands grow tighter around my face. They seem abnormally cheerful about having captured me, about having me under their power, unable to run. The ghostly mugshot zips across my vision, because I'm unsure what they're going to do. They seem to be acting like predators playing with their prey before they devour it. All notice of their competitors behind them seem to fade.

"Elena, is it?" the girl asks, her voice too sweet. Her grip on the spear is loosened. She knows I'm not going to make any attempt to escape.

I nod carefully.

"I'm Astrid," she announces with pride. "I have a feeling you dismissed me, as the poor district girl. Right?"

I shake my head desperately.

"I don't care for liars," she tells me darkly, her grip tightening again. My body tenses up, prepared for impact.

"I didn't notice anyone," I squeak and you can hear from my voice I'm crying.

Astrid seems to give up on me. "You have a pack?"

I nod, unsure.

She holds out her hand purposefully. "Well, give it here, girl."

A surge of anger escapes me, for being discriminated and humiliated, for being called 'girl', for being torn of my possessions. But I slide my pack off unwillingly and hold a shaky arm out. She snatches it off me, roots inside it for a moment and then, once satisfied, puts it over her shoulder. She sends Willo off to 'pick off the idiots dying here'. I hear several calls of agony as he goes around the horn, stabbing those who have been injured and left to die.

"What can we do with you?" she says to herself, circling me. My heart thumps, terrified and exhausted and overall humiliated.

"Please," I say again.

Without warning, she launches the spear into my left arm.

The pain is amazing. It's indescribable. It's so sharp and sudden it knocks the pure breath out of me. I feel the blood beginning the flow. Desperately, I press against the deep wound with my hand, too agonised to scream, too occupied with stopping myself from bleeding to death. I imagine the spear launching into my throat or my chest, the pain worse, the blood draining out of me, the life along with it, all the hope there ever was for my family. My brother Quentin must be watching now. Watching me die. I catch Astrid smirk and I scrabble back as she raises her spear again. My blood is on the end of it. She kneels down, grabs the pony tail of my strawberry blonde hair and pulls my ear to her lips.

What comes out of that pink little mouth stuns me.

"Now run, girl."

Easily, she pulls my to my feet and gives me a prompting shove. I stare at her for a moment. Willo is coming back, sword stained with sticky red. Confused and scared and in pain, I spin on my heel and take off, still clutching at my wound, the blood wetting my hand. I look behind me a few times, but Willo and Astrid are gathering supplies. Not a Career in sight. I'm bemused. Weak District Twelve kids, fourteen or fifteen, overpowering the stronger tributes, ultimately overpowering us all as the circle the horn. I let my panicked feet drag me onwards, unsure where I'm heading, just knowing the thorny bushes ahead of me don't hold Willo or Astrid.

**So, er, that's Chapter One, short or not, I have no clue, and this is also my first, so... yeah. Hope(fully) you like it.**


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